if we never composed another lick of music for the rest of time, we would have enough beautiful music for the Mass till kingdom come JUST singing the chant! Who could ever tire or get bored of hearing this stuff!!! If they want to sing something new, send em down the street to the mega church.

I had exactly the same feeling. The grand brass and choir carols before and during Mass are awesome, but when I stood in the back of church as the choir began Dominus Dixit (after the deacon chanted the Christmas proclamation), and I gave a nod to the thurifer to start down the isle, like you said, I knew it was christmas.

Wow. incense and chant for midnight Mass! Must be nice. :)

While I agree with what has been said above, some of us are forced to play at least some touchy-feely music which needs to be changed often. I do tend to repeat hymns on specific feasts from year-to-year, but a hymn that is only used once a year is not often enough for it to be familiar with the average PIP.

And not to get off topic too much, from a practical standpoint, how many Mass ordinary settings should the average parish rotate through the year?

I like having a different ordinary for each liturgical season, but how many for ordinary time? Chant Masses aside (they're not welcome at the present time, though I've used the ICEL Missal chants for Advent, Lent and funerals), does anyone have any suggestions for decent quality, congregation friendly ordinaries? One that can speak to both the touchy-feely people and the devout who prefer to pray rather than tap their foot? I think I've listened to all of them on the big three websites and don't care for any of them. There are some nice ones on CanticaNOVA but I'm already walking on thin ice.

Earl Grey -

How many mass settings for a parish repertory?
If I were starting from scratch in a Catholic church my goal would be:

A -
One festal setting for both Christmastide and Eastertide, plus solemnities
+ one setting for both Advent and Lent
+ one setting for ordinary time
(in extreme cases the festal and ordinary time setting would be the same.

B -
One setting for both Christmastide and Eastertide, plus solemnities
+ one setting for Advent
+ one setting for Lent
+ one setting for ordinary time

C
One setting for Advent
+ One festal setting for Christmastide (through Baptism of the Lord)
+ One setting for Lent
+ One festal setting for Eastertide and other solemnities
+ One setting for ordinary time
(with the possibility of adding a 2nd mass during the long season of ordinary time.

I would start with A and have the attainment of C as a multi-year goal.
This plan could or would be tailored as necessary for particular parishes.

C represents an ideal for a parish with a stable music program.

1. One would certainly wish to consider Fr Columba's English adaptations of the Gregorian masses for having a place in the parish repertory.
2. If plainchant masses are part of the repertory, they should not at all be relegated to penitential seasons: several of them are of a quite joyful and festal nature. Doing 'chant' only in penitential seasons sends a very unfortunatley mistaken message.
3. Non-plainchant masses with organ accompaniments should be chosen very, very carefully and judiciously as to their musical merit. A good question to ask in choosing them is 'would they do this at Christ Church Cathedral?'.
4. Perhaps when one begins to reach plan C one would consider having a plainchant festal mass and a composed organ-accompanied mass as the other festal mass. And ditto the penitental seasons; one chant, the other composed.
5. After realising C (and 4), one might then go to learning a (different, of course) chant mass for part of ordinary time and a composed mass for the rest of it.

These are just some ideas that may or may not be useful to you at your parish.

Obviously, this is an ambitious plan which would take several years to accomplish, but it represents the minum repertory that a parish of even moderate means (and CERTAINLY one of real means) should have in its liturgical arsenal, and which could then be expanded upon as circumstances make feasible.

Also, one is not bound to do the same masses year in and year out. This gets boring and old hat. One can, after several years add, say a new festal mass for Christmas and so forth... always avoiding upsetting the rhythm by learing more that one new setting a year (after you have achieved C). This way the people gain conficence with a stable repertory of seasonally appropriate masses, and remain comfortable enough to even expect to be taught another new one (just one) every year or so. By the end of five or six years one then has a sizable repertory of festal masses, penitential masses and ordinary time masses to rotate

MJO, that is a great format. Yesterday I just happened to be mapping out what Mass ordinaries the parish would learn and exactly when and how they would be taught. We use the Vatican II Hymnal and have one Mass with Latin ordinaries and English at the others. I figured that by 2016, we will have learned five each:

Advent/Lent
Missa Primitiva (Latin at all Masses)

Christmas, Easter, & other feasts
St Ralph Sherwin / Mass VIII

Ordinary Time rotate between:
Mass of Sacred Heart (Rice) / Mass XI
and
Weber - St. Thomas More (K I, G II, S II, A II) / ad libitum (K XVI, Ambr. G, Ambr. S, A II)
and
ICEL / Mass XV

From there we will go to work learning additional Masses (English: perhaps Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Anne Line; Latin: Masses I, IX & XVII). I figure that sometime around 2018 or 2019 we'll have a well-established and familiar repertoire of ordinaries. Then we might start transferring some of the Latin ones over to English Masses...

Program familiar music for the congregation.
Get your "new music" kicks with choir-only pieces.
Teach new music to the congregation by having the choir sing it as a choir-only piece several times within a few months.

Repetition is fine enough, provided it is not a means unto itself that goes nowhere. It is a method that, properly, should be utilised for the purpose of educating and expanding ones musical horizons - not for maintaining the status quo. Generally, the paucity and lack of variety of musical resources in many parishes is, at least for me, appalling and very saddening.

Even in the context of the four hymn/song sandwich, with approximately 200 "slots" available, it is all too depressingly familiar to have to endure only about 35 hymns or songs in the "rotation." Perhaps there are some who can stomach "The Gift of Finest Wheat" being programmed at Communion every third Sunday - I cannot. And although some, if not most, congregations will raise the roof singing "Holy God, we praise thy name" each time it is programmed, having to sing it every second or third week is, in the end, limiting.

As for choirs, something like the Arcadelt "Ave Maria" - lovely as it is - is not something that should be hauled out once a month like clockwork. It is the much the same with Mass ordinaries, which MJO has addressed very well already.

The situation at each parish is undoubtedly different, hence the above examples are merely anecdotal and would not be the same everywhere that this is a problem. This should not be taken as encouragement or a signal for others to dredge up their own examples and start a laundry list here. Quite the contrary, this is more in the nature of a request that repetition be used as a teaching or catechetical strategy to increase our understanding, knowledge, appreciation and - ultimately - greater utilisation of the wealth of sacred music appropriate for our liturgies.

We must consider them when choosing music if they are to participate.

Whole thing, right there- from simplicity to repetition to repertoire selection to key signature to notation style to ink-color to tempo. Congregational singing (if it is desired- and it is not always) must be carefully and deliberately cultivated. It does not happen by accident.

(When people visit my parish, their compliments on how well my congregation sings always make me prouder than comments about how good my choir sounds.)

I don't consider what I do to encourage congregational singing to be cajoling or seducing- perhaps motivating and enabling. I agree with point 2, with the addition that sometimes, in some congregations, "optimal music" includes the quality of "able to be sung by any member of this congregation who wishes to do so."

There are those in the congregation who won't sing anything no matter what, including Christmas carols, so while congregational participation should be a primary consideration, good music--including variety should not be sacrificed in the name of encouraging active participation. Perhaps I sometimes err on the side of too much variety, so I hear what Frogman's original point is. I suppose balance is key.

Agree matthewj-but also if his parish is younger and no catholic school connection-kids are not learning carols like we did in school. Very sad.